


Comes the Dawn

by bionically



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hurt Severus Snape, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Pining, Unrequited Love, with hope at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bionically/pseuds/bionically
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, Hermione sits day in and day out next to a slowly recuperating and mute Severus Snape, and realises that it's not just sympathy keeping her there.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 29
Kudos: 194
Collections: His is the Snark That Heals and Hers is the Heart That Holds





	Comes the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Disenchantedglow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disenchantedglow/gifts).



> This is dedicated to my friend, disenchantedglow, who's the awesomest person on the internet. (Yes, I said it. Everyone else can come at me.) Happy Birthday, queen!!! I've never written Sevmione before, and it was just about the hardest thing to write. I hope I did the ship justice.
> 
> Fantastically beta'd by dreamsofdramione and alpha'd by jame.

**Comes the Dawn**

**_After a while you learn the subtle difference_ **

**_Between holding a hand and chaining a soul._ **

**_And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning_ **

**_And company isn’t security._ **

**_You learn that kisses aren’t contracts_ **

**_And presents aren’t promises,_ **

**_And you begin to accept your defeats_ **

**_With your head up and your eyes open_ **

**_With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child._ **

**_And you learn to build all your roads on today,_ **

**_Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,_ **

**_And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight._ **

**_After a while you learn_ **

**_That even sunshine burns if you get too much or stand too long in one place._ **

**_So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul_ **

**_Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers._ **

**_And you learn that you really can endure…_ **

**_That you really are strong,_ **

**_And you really do have worth._ **

**_You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn._ **

_-accredited to Judith Evans_ or _Jorge Luis Borges_

* * *

**_After a while_ **

Nervousness warred with anticipation in the pit of Hermione's stomach as she placed one hand on the heavy wooden door. She counted to three, took a deep breath, and pushed. Instantly, the smell of the Hogwarts sickroom engulfed her. Essence of dittany and murtlap tinctures intermingled in the air, and the fumes from the wormwood incense billowed at one side of the room, the smoke rising before being carried out the long open windows. The metallic clinking of bed curtain rings and clanging of bottles on medicine trays were interspersed between the constant bustle of people walking around.

She kept her head down and moved through the throng. Lunchtime was always particularly busy here, and nobody spared her but a glance and the occasional smile as she made her way to one of the rooms at the end of the corridor. 

The door was open a crack, but she still knocked softly before pushing it open all the way. “Hello, Professor?” she called in a slightly hushed voice. When she wasn’t repelled by any disarming or repudiating force, she moved forward.

A blue smoke billowed out from the other side of the room, and she looked up instinctively as the aroma of lavender infused the air. 

_“You again.”_

The blue words hung in the air for a moment before dissipating, and she couldn’t help the little smile that crept onto her face. Out of respect, though, she schooled her features into passive nonchalance before turning to gaze at the figure of Severus Snape.

He looked, surprisingly for his ordeal, much the same as ever. Even a bout with Voldemort’s fearsome snake couldn’t dim the sharp light in his eyes or slow his graceful movement as he cast the nonverbal spell for his words to float through the air. 

Though the white bandages encasing his neck and part of his left shoulder were obtrusive, with his hair tied back into a queue as required by the Healers, they only seemed to emphasise the uprightness of his spine, as though not even this setback could topple him sideways. Well, perhaps not quite upright. Hermione’s eyes shrewdly took in how he still leaned to one side, though he no longer cradled his bound arm, nor paused for breath whenever he stood for too long. The sheen of sweat had disappeared permanently from his waxy brow, and he smelled of soap and detergent, when before the sickening sweet smell of illness had permeated his room.

The venom had spread through the muscles on his left, and although it had all passed through his system, recovery of the use of that side would take extensive rehabilitation. She was certain it was the only reason that a standing, mobile Severus Snape was still within the confines of the hospital ward and not elsewhere.

“You shouldn’t be standing for very long, sir. Madame Pomfrey sent me to make sure you were off your feet.” Despite her words, Hermione didn’t move across the room to take his arm and guide him to the bed or his chair. She knew better than that. 

All she did was set several books on the table next to her and wait.

She didn’t have to wait long. A line of blue words floated across the room to her: _“Did the Healers not want me to perambulate to regain the use of my muscles? Or should I keep my pacing to their schedule?”_

He reminded her of a caged animal.

A caged bird with his wings clipped and his fearsome beak muzzled. Perhaps that was the reason Hermione found the bravery to, time and again, day after day, come into this hospital room and meet with the strictest teacher she’d ever had. His acidic words, formerly tinged with soul-piercing sarcasm, felt less personal, less hurtful in the ephemeral blue of a disappearing mist. She couldn’t help but feel the sort of sadness one experienced at a zoo, seeing a wild animal pace its criminally small domain. Professor Severus Snape had once been just as fearsome as an animal in the wild.

God willing, he would one day be so again.

Among all the grief they had already witnessed, Hermione couldn’t help but think that he was a man who deserved to roam free as was his wont, to wander as far as his brilliant mind could take him.

Hermione averted her eyes as he moved stiffly about. “I’m only delivering the message,” she said in as mild a tone as she could manage.

_“And what are those? More books to distract me from my undead state?”_

Hermione chose not to respond to that opening. Until two weeks ago, Severus Snape had adamantly refused to take mind-altering potions, even if they helped him heal faster. The interim Headmistress McGonagall had to intervene by ordering him to follow the Healer’s orders or take his undead state elsewhere. 

Snape had smiled bitterly at that, pointedly tilting his head to the side. _“I’d have thought you, of all people, Minerva, would want me dead.”_

Even white and grey-lipped from fatigue and blood loss, he’d been as caustic as ever. Hermione didn’t think she’d imagined the way the Headmistress’s face blanched in reaction before she’d straightened her spine, much in the way a cat would arch its back before slinking out of an unpleasant situation. “You’ll do as you’re told, Severus, if you want the luxury of this corner room.” There had been a suspicious brightness in the Headmistress’s eyes as she’d whipped herself out of the room, nearly knocking Hermione over.

Hermione could well imagine just how much the Headmistress had berated herself. Everyone was tiptoeing around Professor Snape nowadays. Awkwardness reigned in every interaction with him, with the thoughts of his double agency fresh on everyone’s mind. Frankly, Hermione didn’t think that the tense atmosphere was conducive to his recovery. 

She spoke as matter-of-factly as she could. “Sir, the library is still in a sad disarray, and the cataloguing charmwork has completely been disassembled. I’m afraid this was all I could find of the books you recommended. I’ve read them all, and I still couldn’t find the spell you mentioned.”

She had indeed read them all. She’d stayed up half the night in order to do so, to come here again on the very next day like clockwork. Something drew her here in the same way a bird enthusiast willingly trooped through mud and battled mosquitoes in order to observe their quarry in its natural habitat. 

His eyes narrowed, and he stiffly rose from where he had been sitting on the edge of his bed. Her fist clenched hard to keep from reaching out to help him. 

He reached the table haltingly, and with his wand lightly but no less carefully clasped between his third and forefinger, he began to flip through the pages of the top book. His left arm was held against his body at an angle. A frown etched itself between his brows, and his eyes moved quickly down the page, at double the speed of his current debilitated physical state.

She watched him without moving or speaking. Observing her professors had been ingrained in her for so long that she naturally catalogued how his head tilted and his eyes narrowed when he came across a dubious phrase—the same way he used to react whenever she raised her hand to speak in class. 

Under Professor Slughorn’s tutelage, her effusive essays were graded extremely high. _Excellent work!_ had been written across the top of more than one paper, but not a mark crossed the rest of the pristine pages. In comparison, when a much subdued Hermione had turned in a short assignment in DADA, the brusque word across the top, _Acceptable_ , was more heartwarming than any one of Professor Slughorn’s fulsome accolades. She’d taken that acceptable paper and read it through, over and over again, in the privacy of her dorms. She’d studied the red dots from Professor Snape’s quill when he’d paused over a particular comment she’d made, _knowing_ he'd actually spent the time reading every word she wrote.

When she was younger, she'd always been wounded by the way he could so cavalierly and unfairly dismiss her efforts. But now only he could make _Acceptable_ into such a beautiful, _perfect_ word.

She smiled at him as he flipped through the pages of the first book so quickly that, if it were anyone else, she’d have accused them of not even reading. “Only you, sir,” she said softly, “could read a book so quickly it appears as though you’re using it for a fan.” Affection for her professor, who had in the past months become her patient, tinged her voice.

His head snapped up then, apparently too quickly for comfort, because his right hand came up to touch the bandaging at his neck. Something flickered in his eyes as they roved over her face, as though he were looking for something there, suspecting something that could be detected in her expression.

She froze, the smile sliding from her face as she stuttered out her apology. “Sorry.” Had she overstepped the bounds of familiarity? It was only—they weren’t just professor and student now, were they? Not after all the time they’d spent together…

There was an almost imperceptible withdrawal from him before he flipped the book closed. He whipped his wand into the air, and she waited for the billowing blue smoke to rise.

_“Leave the books. I need to rest.”_

She blinked. “Of course, Professor,” she said. “I’ll—I’m sorry—should I get Madame Pomfrey for you?”

_“No need.”_

Hermione bit her lip and nodded. For the lack of anything better to do, she stacked the books together, making sure all the spines lined up against one another, parallel with the edge of the table. 

She could feel his eyes on her and she wanted… What did she want? 

She wanted to sit down and talk to him. She wanted to hear his blunt truths, the way he never lied about anything or anyone. If there was no cure at all for her parents, his confirmation would be devastating for her, but also the only one she’d trust and accept. She wanted to tell him how he’d been her favourite professor at Hogwarts, but please not to tell Professor McGonagall or Professor Flitwick, because on more than one occasion, she’d gotten the impression that _she_ was _their_ favourite. 

For her, it'd undeniably been the gruff and grim Potions Master.

He’d been the one who’d never backed down and had forced her to work harder than she’d ever done in her life.

He’d been the one—when she saw his name at the top of publications—that had made her smile and check them out of the library. She’d read them time and again, just to see what topic had interested him enough to submit as a paper to the Magical Studies Editorial Board, to see if she could pick up his particular art of concision and eloquence.

He'd been the one—despite all his unceasing acidulous comments—to try to save them in her third year, to offer himself up as sacrifice in order to defeat Voldemort.

How could she not be eternally thankful and _oh, so grateful_ she'd met someone like him in her life?

She wanted to ask: _Have I improved, Professor? Am I better at concision than I was at eleven or twelve or thirteen? Do I pass your high standards for perfection?_

Or the question that beat inside her chest every time she walked through his hospital room door: _Do you approve of me now?_

Of course now wasn’t the time to ask those questions. Maybe there never would be a time. If he sneered at her or told her that he saw no difference, that there wasn’t a change at all, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d take it.

There’d never been as strict a taskmaster in her life, and she’d never strived so hard for anyone else’s approval.

Quietly, she ducked her head and turned to go.

Just before she pulled the door wide, another flash of blue wavered at the edge of her periphery. She turned to gaze at the floating words.

_“I’m not your professor anymore. Don’t come here again.”_

  
  


**_Head up_ **

Hermione wasn't sure how she managed to return to Grimmauld Place, but somehow she did it, putting one foot in front of the other, slowly and carefully, until she had made it out of the hospital wing. Then she broke into a run until she was flying for the Floos. Something was prickling at her eyes, making her tear up, and she told herself it had to be the Floo powder, because there was no other reason for her to cry. If she told herself this enough, she’d believe it.

By the time she ducked out of the fireplace, there was only a little knot in her throat. When she brushed the soot from her hair, she could almost convince herself that nothing so terrible had happened. 

_He was suffering from PTSD, that was all. He’d had such a terrible injury, and it’d taken him this long to regain his footing, even if he couldn’t talk yet._

Maybe he would never talk again, and the thought of never hearing his voice again nearly set off another emotional whirlpool within her. So much was already precariously different in a way that sent her nerves jangling. This change seemed like yet another abhorrent aftereffect in her unsteady landscape that was completely out of her control; something else she couldn’t fix. 

The sound of laughter cut into her thoughts. 

Settled around in the dark living room were Ginny and Luna. Abstractedly, Hermione realised they were both wearing kerchiefs over their hair and aprons. They broke off their conversation to gaze at her in a puzzled way. 

“You alright?” Ginny asked with a frown.

Hermione pulled herself together with effort. “Yes, I’m—alright. Oh, you’ve been cleaning up.” She guiltily took in their dusty aprons and sweat-stained faces. “I should have been here.”

“It's alright. It’s probably much more taxing visiting the sickroom.” Luna smiled at her, and Hermione didn't even bother to ask how she knew where she'd been. “And it was very fun going down the Black family’s memory lane.”

Ginny grimaced. “Well, fun’s not exactly how I would put it. Where did they _get_ so much stuff? I feel like I’d already cleared up half this same lot the last time we went through everything. Where is it coming from?”

“Oh, it’s probably Kreacher.” Hermione waved her hand and tried to focus on the conversation. “He probably stores the things away as you’re lugging them into the rubbish.”

Luna peered at her through flame-framed glasses. “You look very distracted. Were you able to get the answers you wanted from Professor Snape?”

Hermione looked down at her hands, idly registering that she’d been twisting her wand around and around between her fingers. “He—told me he doesn’t want me to come back anymore.”

“Oh, that greasy git.” Ginny rolled her eyes. “Rumor has it he’s not going to be a professor at Hogwarts next year, so there’s no need for you to make up to him anymore. You can just stay with us, Hermione.”

Hermione flushed “It’s not like that! I’m not—I’m not… _making up to him_ . God, after all the things he’s done, how can—” She shook her head. “He has nobody, Gin. _Nobody._ From what Harry says, he only had the Headmaster, and he—” 

She couldn’t even finish.

Albus Dumbledore had offered Severus Snape up as sacrifice.

He'd used Severus Snape over and over, as though the younger man no longer had a soul to lose, when he’d been no older than she was now.

Hermione couldn't even begin to imagine what that would have been like. He'd almost died once as the brunt of a joke. He'd almost died again, right before her own eyes, blood draining out of him like water from a broken cask.

And there was no one there at his bedside to see him back to health.

Only her. Only the student that he'd most definitely found irritating and certainly impertinent on occasion.

Even Harry had been driven away by Severus Snape's cold, antisocial manners, despite all his determination to smooth over the past.

A hand came over to rest on her arm. Hermione looked up to find Ginny gripping her forearm. “Right. You’re right, I’m sorry. Old habit, you know? Harry hated him so much that it’s—it’s hard to adjust. Anyway, I know how much you worshipped him.”

Hermione shook her head again, wrapping her arms around herself. “No, I didn’t—worship?” Even to her own ears, she sounded unsure.

“You always put double the effort into the assignments he gave you, you were always so eager whenever you saw him when _everyone else_ was dodging him in the hallways, and you always stuck up for him whenever Harry bashed him.” Ginny ticked off the points on her hand and gave her a raised-eyebrow look as though to say: _Am I wrong?_

Hermione made a scoffing sound and jumped on the last point. “I don’t—I mean, I stick up for whomever Harry bashes! It’s a _lot_ of people, you know.”

“Not Rita Skeeter,” Ginny said with a knowing lift of her shoulders. “And that’s just in the past. You’ve gone to see him every day for the past three months. It’s as though you’ve signed up to be his personal nurse.”

Even before Ginny had finished speaking, Hermione was shaking her head. “You’re misconstruing everything—”

“You do look happier after you’ve seen him,” Luna said with a gentle smile. “Less agitated, not so much like you’ve been battling with crumple-horned snorkacks.”

“It’s—he’s—it’s completely normal to be happy to see your professor recovering!” Hermione was sputtering, and she didn’t even know why. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire.

“It sounds like you’re enamoured of Professor Snape.” After delivering this bomb, Luna looked, as usual, as though she were speaking of nothing more controversial than cleaning out gutters. Certainly not the current topic at hand of Hermione developing feelings for the most exacting professor to have ever existed.

Ginny’s mouth was an O of startled surprise and her head whipped from Luna back to Hermione. Her eyes were wide with shock. “Hermione, is that true? That makes so much sense! Really, in anyone else, that would have been my first instinct, but I didn’t think—do you really fancy him?”

Hermione blew out a _pfft_ sound through her lips. “No, of course not! Not in the way you’re implying. Of course I admire him! He’s brilliant, you know? Quite possibly the most brilliant man I’ve ever met in my life, and probably the most upstanding, but in a way that you’d never know or realise if nobody had told you, and isn’t that in itself something admirable and worthy of respect? Honestly—of all the adults in our lives who have disappointed us in some form or fashion, shouldn’t it turn out to be strange that it would be Severus Snape who would prove us all wrong?” The noise coming from her sounded strange, as though it should have been a laugh but somehow wasn't, not with that hard lump that hadn’t quite dissipated still lodged in her throat “I just—I don’t want him to just disappear from our lives, you know? I mean, are you quite certain he’s leaving Hogwarts for good?”

“He’s always had Nargles around his head,” Luna said with a wise nod. “But when I saw him in the hospital ward, they were replaced by wrackspurts, and that’s never a good thing.”

Ginny nodded along with Luna, as though she weren’t talking nonsense, and turned back to Hermione with an expression to indicate she should listen to Luna. 

"I don’t fancy him or anything." Hermione’s cheeks felt ablaze with heat, and she wasn’t able to meet their eyes. "He’s my _teacher_ , for heaven’s sake. It’s completely normal to—to admire your teacher, that’s all.”

“Not if it’s Snape, no.” Ginny tapped her bottom lip with a forefinger. “Although there were a few Slytherins who were mad for him. They referred to him as the Fit Westphalian Professor.” She shrugged. “I suppose he does resemble a vampire a little. Broody and pale and dark.”

Hermione scoffed at that. “He’d never look twice at a student,” she said. “They’re completely off their rockers. He’d need someone bookish and brilliant—”

Ginny and Luna exchanged a loaded glance that didn’t go amiss by Hermione. “You’re describing yourself, Hermione,” Ginny said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

Hermione threw up her hands. "I’m not having this conversation! I’m just saying he _deserves_ someone like that. He deserves a chance at happiness. They _all_ did. Sirius and Remus and—” She choked on the names. “Tonks and Fred.” It didn’t escape her that every person on that list was younger than the previous person. 

How could she explain just how she felt about Severus Snape? They were speaking of romantic love as though it were the first-time crush of a young girl who giggled whenever she saw a cute boy. Her heart ached for Snape in a way that made her feel completely helpless, like nothing would make her happier than if he suddenly looked up and his eyes were devoid of that yawning emptiness and crippling desolation that handicapped him more than his physical wounds.

Like if she could fix him somehow, all would be right with her world again.

She shook her head. They didn’t understand. "In any case, it's a moot point because I'm _not enamoured_ of him." She knew she sounded defensive— _much too defensive,_ something inside her said when no one spoke. _Just stop talking._ She took a deep breath. _"_ I just want him to be happy. That doesn’t mean I fancy him or anything."

Ginny was silent for a long time. Then, "I can see that.” She was looking down at where her fingers were plucking a stray thread from the upholstery. Before Hermione could ask any questions, she looked up and shrugged. “But if you did, it’d be alright with me, you know. And the age gap wouldn't exactly be unheard of, considering how long wizards live.”

Hermione’s pulse was much too fast. Questions were poised at the tip of her tongue, like Ginny’s serious, thoughtful words had unlocked a dam of possibilities that Hermione had never considered before. Things she’d buried deep within her and never allowed to see the light of day. Things like: _No, but do you really think so…? Do you really think it’s possible? Is there really hope…?_

Just as that door began to creak open within her, Hermione slammed it shut. She stood from the sofa and smiled at Ginny and Luna. Her voice was brisk. “It doesn’t matter because I don’t fancy him.”

She knew what they didn’t know, that it could never be possible, and it wasn’t because of the age difference.

  
  


**_Eyes open_ **

There had been a dearth of workers in the initial aftermath of the last battle. Without a wand, Hermione was less than helpless in moving the injured and incapacitated. At least in the hospital ward, she could do some good in staunching the blood and measuring out the correct dosage of potions.

It’d briefly occurred to her in third year just how young Professor Snape truly was. It was the sort of thing that would never have crossed her mind in first or second year, when he’d been a tall and truly terrifying figure, swooping down on the Gryffindors at any moment to upbraid them for any minor transgressions. 

Only, they’d met Sirius, and in the moments when he’d flashed his once charming smile, Hermione could see just how young and devastating Harry’s godfather was and still could be. The loose and sagging lines of age momentarily lifted, and those grey eyes flashed with mischief, and Hermione understood that this was a man who’d once been a student at Hogwarts like them, who’d once had friends and hoped for a different, better sort of life.

Time-Turners were tricky things. In that one moment when you travelled back to your own past, you realised things that your contemporaries didn’t—you saw things that you missed the first time. Professor Snape had always been that terribly hard-to-please professor—until she’d witnessed from afar his interactions with Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. She’d realised then that they had once stood toe-to-toe with one another in the same way Hermione was flanked by Ron and Harry. 

Once not so long ago, he’d been a student like her, and he’d had to deal with classmates who treated his life like it was nothing. It should have been his greatest terror to face again the same werewolf who’d once threatened his life, and yet he’d been the one who’d gathered them behind him and offered his paltry human body as a weak shield to protect them.

It was difficult to view him with animosity after that.

With the bottom left portion of the back of his head shaved to gain access to his wounds, he’d looked young and defenseless on the white bed. A bat without the gift of flight. When the bright light lit his face, Hermione could see just how lineless his skin was, how the deep coma erased all signs of worry and strain from his features. He looked then in that moment younger than Remus had, with a life of a dispossessed and shunned werewolf, or Sirius, who’d spent a vast majority of his life being hounded by Dementors. 

She’d found a strange kinship with her professor then—he who was one of the last of his generation, the crux of the first rebellion against Voldemort. 

Hermione doubted there were few others who’d know what it was like to fight a war against a Dark wizard in one’s late teens. And of the two of them, Snape was the one who’d had to fight the war twice before he’d even reached the age of forty.

After a while, more workers were found to manage the wounds and medicine by magic, and a wand was found for Hermione to use while on Hogwarts’ property. Still, she was drawn back to Professor Snape’s unmoving, silent figure on the bed. Physically, though he hadn’t woken, he was improving all the while. His pallor decreased, the bruising disappeared, and his fingers twitched with the soundless sign of life. 

All around the ward, there was the hustle and bustle of life and visitors trooping in to visit the sick and wounded. Snape’s room remained ominously still. He had devoted so much of his life to working underground that he had no life outside of the school, no friends other than the Death Eaters he’d vowed to betray, and no relatives to offer him solace.

Two weeks into his coma, Hermione took her textbook with her as she sat down next to Snape’s bed and began to read aloud.

As she read, her mind drifted over the events of the day, of the life outside of the school, to her parents in Australia, with whom she’d had no contact since she’d let them go that terrible day. The Ministry hadn’t issued International Portkeys in over a month, and varying other institutions were similarly shut down, due to undergo investigation and re-warding. Nothing was working aside from the hospitals; not Gringotts, not the Floo network, not anything that could be used to aid Death Eaters on the run. All the official portals to the Muggle world were either destroyed or malfunctioning.

Even if she’d wanted to, she wouldn’t have been able to visit her parents. Without her own wand—not a half-arsed, borrowed one—even if she visited, she was no good to them. Without access to Gringott’s, she wouldn’t be able to exchange the money necessary for a plane ticket. It was the number one priority on her mind, and yet she was chained here to the school, just as much as Snape was, even without any injury more serious than the recurring pains from hex into her side a year ago or occasional nightmares from the Crucios she’d endured.

None of her friends understood her need to read to Snape from her textbooks. “You’d put him to deeper sleep like that,” Ron had joked. “Promise me that if I’m ever in a coma, you’ll read from Seeker Weekly, yeah?”

Harry had pulled her aside, ruffling his hair with his hand until it stood up on all ends. “I should go talk to him,” he said, his brows drawn together. “But I—can’t. I know all the good he’s done, but I still can’t forgive him for it. Not now. Not until I’ve spoken to him. If not for him, my mother would still be alive. It’s not—rational. I know it’s not.” He sighed deeply, the sound like a lonely wind whistling down through a stone canyon. When she squeezed him comfortingly on the arm, Harry looked up at her with something of the old light in his green eyes and a twitch of his lips. “But, textbooks, Hermione? Really?”

She hadn’t let any of them dissuade her. They’d all assumed that she was sucking up to the teacher in anticipation of the recommendations she’d receive. 

She didn’t tell them that it was mainly for her. That she knew just how isolation felt, and how being good at school made you a target in ways that nothing overcame. That she knew what guilt felt like, and that she understood what it was to sacrifice a part of yourself in the understanding that you’d never receive recognition for it.

Two weeks into her reading, she’d looked up to take a break. Outside, she heard the sounds of people playing a pick-up game on the Quidditch pitch. Summer had come to Hogwarts, and the hills were once again lush and verdant, with wildflowers blooming freely as far as the eye could see. The windows of the school had been repaired and were opened to let in the fresh, warm breeze. 

For the first time since the beginning of the year, it had seemed like the world was filled with hope again.

Hermione turned her face into the bright golden rays shining through the windows and casting a warm orangish-yellow glow over her hair and skin, inhaling as though she were freshly baptised by the light. When she opened her eyes again, she met the dark, intense eyes of Severus Snape, staring straight at her from the depths of his hospital bed. 

He had finally woken up out of his coma.

He’d balanced on the edge of life and death long past the time that they’d given him. Nobody but a handful of people had given him very good odds at waking. 

There was a moment in which she couldn’t speak, her voice lodged in her throat as she gazed back down at him. He regarded her as though he didn’t recognise her, as though he’d seen someone in his past; a ghost, someone to put that strange look on his face—an expression that looked oddly like naked longing or fearful hope. The seconds ticked past, yet Hermione felt bound by a strange spell she was loath to break, as though, if she spoke, she’d break more than the moment; she’d break his very heart.

She wasn’t sure, but she thought his throat bobbed under the bandages at his neck. She felt almost breathless under his regard, his topaz eyes flickering over her face before dipping down in a way that was as intimate as an actual caress. 

In that moment, they were no longer Professor Snape and Hermione Granger, teacher and student, but Severus and Hermione, equals.

_Man and woman._

She waited with bated breath as his fingers had lifted from the bedspread and brushed over her knuckles. A shiver worked its way up her spine at his touch, and she bit her lip at the torrent of emotions threatening to spill over. 

“Severus—” His name was intimate and— _right_ —on her tongue. She was poised to launch into speech just as a loud knock sounded on the door.

“Time for potions!” the Healer announced cheerily.

He snatched back his hand as though he’d been burned.

The shuffling sound of footsteps intruded upon them. “Dear, dear,” Madame Pomfrey said, tsking loudly as she strode in. “This light must be right in your eyes!” She bustled over to the windows and pulled the curtains across half of the glass panes. 

Hermione blinked as the sunlight disappeared off her skin to retreat to the other half of the room. Below her, the odd look on Snape’s face disappeared. The frown, which had been absent from his brow for over a month, returned.

Something had been different about Severus Snape the moment he opened his eyes. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t speak, or that he needed help to sit up. It was that he’d lost any desire to communicate. His left vocal cord was irreparably damaged with nothing but scar tissue in its place. It affected his ability to eat properly, and when taken off the breathing apparatus, the ragged quality of his respiration was alarming. 

Aside from that, he was also diagnosed with possible paralysis of his left side, the extent of which would only be seen once he regained mobility. 

When told, not a flicker of expression crossed his face. Hermione fetched water for him and held it up to his lips. “Professor?” she asked softly, in a coaxing tone of voice, redirecting his attention from the billowing curtains back to her. His dark eyes pulled back to her presence, and she saw the moment that he recognised her. There was an imperceptible withdrawal in him, like he was seeing someone he did not want to see. 

She felt the sting of the rejection at once. Even if she’d received nothing but a string of rejections from this man over the years, somehow, _this_ withdrawal hurt the most. The stark contrast between the naked hope and yearning a moment ago and the cold, shuttered expression now was a slap in the face. It felt as though the puppy she’d fed and sheltered through all of its life had grown up to bite her on the hand. She was almost breathless with how the hardness of his demeanour twisted her insides.

Later, she’d reflected back on that look on his face. He’d expected to die. The resigned and empty manner in which he’d borne out Madame Pomfrey’s diagnosis clearly showed that. 

He hadn’t expected to see the face of his student next to his bed.

He’d thought he’d seen someone dead instead. Someone he’d hoped to see again.

She shouldn’t have taken it personally. The look of distaste on his face hadn’t specifically been meant for her. It was only that she had a moment in which she’d had his regard, and, for her, the sun had momentarily come out from behind the clouds and shone on her brighter than the Scottish dawn.

  
  


**_Tomorrow’s ground_ **

She'd grown so used to seeing him every day that she was only able to stay away two days before she became so fidgety her legs began to naturally take her in the direction of the Hogwarts sickroom again.

There was an audible sigh when he saw her that should have rebuffed her instantly, but she'd already become accustomed to his bluster during his gradual recovery.

If bracing oneself to be rejected could be considered becoming _accustomed_ to something _._

“I wanted to see if you’ve come across anything in the books.” Her voice was purposefully bright, she’d pasted a smile on her face, and she’d even worn a bright red sweater paired with a flared skirt to lighten up the room in any way possible. 

He turned from where he had been staring out the window to steadily evaluate her. She felt every moment of that regard as though it were a physical touch. 

He was so much the same, despite his hair pulled back away from his face into a ponytail. The same heavy brow, the same large nose overhanging a small, thin mouth. A square jaw that had always been hidden by the twin wings of his lank hair, so glossy that one couldn’t help but wonder if it were grease or damp from the dankness of the dungeons. 

It wasn’t; she knew that now. After months away from his previous occupation, his hair was sleek and pencil-straight in a way she’d always envied as a child; gleaming like a raven’s wing.

Nothing in the world would make him handsome the way that Sirius Black had been in his prime. He’d never be a joy to watch, always smiling as Hermione was certain James Potter had been, and yet there was something about Severus Snape that was every bit as riveting and compelling. 

Hermione almost laughed at her own thoughts. _Riveting and compelling?_ She sounded like one of those silly girls who went on and on about their crush, describing them in luridly euphemistic ways, and she wasn’t—she didn’t—

Their eyes met, and what she’d always thought was pure black down in the depths of the castle suddenly wasn’t. From outside the windows, a shaft of sunlight struck the side of his cheek, lighting up his eyes from below and turning them a rich, golden topaz. 

Her heart was thudding inside her chest even as a voice berated her deep within: _Stop being so weird with your professor, Hermione._ Another voice, this one sounding remarkably like an arch Ginny: _Not infatuated, Hermione? Pull the other one._

She _wasn’t_ infatuated. 

_Was she?_

A puff of blue swept through the air, and Hermione pulled herself back to the present. _"The texts were inadequate. I've already sent them back to be reshelved."_

He was watching her as he flashed his wand again. Even without his mouth moving, reading his words while standing not a few metres from him, the conversation felt strangely intimate. 

That was, until she read the next words from him. 

_"There's no need for you to find a pretext to visit the invalid. Off you go."_

“I’m not—no, I mean—my parents really _have_ been obliviated. I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t lie about something like that!”

“ _There are experts for that. I suggest you contact them through the usual channels.”_

Hermione curled her hands into tight fists at her sides “I don’t trust them.” She lowered her voice and stared at him, imploringly. “I trust _you.”_

_“Trusting a former Death Eater is a mistake. I hope you know that nobody in England will commend you for it.”_

He was completely expressionless. With his lashes shielding his eyes and no intonation accompanying his words, Hermione found she couldn’t tell what he was saying. Her attention flashed back to the blue words. _Nobody in England will commend you for it_ lingered long after the rest had dissipated. 

“I don’t care about commendations.” She raised her chin high. “I care about doing what’s right.”

His lips twisted at that, the only overt sign of expression he revealed. He shifted his gaze towards the door, which she’d closed behind her, and a slash of his wand opened it again. 

When he turned back to her, his expression was almost mocking. _“Do you? Because a young girl of age visiting a professor alone, with the door closed, almost every single day despite his incapacitated state, is not taking into consideration the proprieties.”_

His words knocked her off guard, but mainly because she somehow felt his mockery was directed more towards himself than at her. She blinked at him in confusion. “I—” 

At that moment, she was completely unable to think of any good reason for her presence. It’d started as a way to get that dark and tortured look off his face, the look that seemed as though he were contemplating something truly terrible, something too wretched to put into words. The look that said somehow he’d stared into the abyss at death and wasn’t quite sure why he’d been sent back to the world of the living.

“I’m of age,” she said, almost defiantly. “What are they going to do to me, put a Horcrux in my head?”

He stared for a moment with a beetled brow, as though trying to work out her comment. A rusty noise emerged from his lips. It was so harsh and raspy that she jerked in alarm, certain that he was having a fit of the coughs which would need seeing to at once. When his right hand went to his throat, Hermione moved into action. She cast a series of charms, bringing up the Healing chart to study his blood pressure and heart rate. 

With her left hand, she covered his right, preventing it from doing any damage to his bandages. She was so distracted by the proximity to him, the touch of his warm skin under her fingertips, that it took her a moment to realise that he was _laughing._

A strange, unfamiliar smile had broken out over his face, and he was shaking silently with mirth. He recovered only briefly to cast his response into the air: _“Is this the part where I say that the student has surpassed the teacher?”_

She fumbled for a suitable response. She’d been knocked askew by the sight of that smile on his face. She’d been right and wrong—he’d never look like James Potter or Sirius, all smiles and dimples, but with his pale, smooth skin eased into a smile that relaxed the frown on his forehead, Severus Snape was striking and handsome in his own way. She was almost breathless with the change. 

In her mind’s eye, she could see a Severus Snape who’d lived a different life; one who hadn’t been recruited as a double agent from an early age, who’d not had every ounce of life suctioned out of him by either side. That Severus Snape was still broody and intense, still acerbic and sarcastic, but he smiled often, and he didn’t hide behind his hair.

_Ginny was right_ , Hermione thought with something like simultaneous despair and relief. _I would do anything for this man._

All the times she’d sat next to him now made sense. She’d considered it her own personal ritual, a work schedule much like school and classes. Her own personal crusade was to return Professor Snape’s condition back to normal, wherein everything in her life would restabilise once more.

She’d sought to give him that. When she visited him, her chipper face was all that she presented to him, even when talking about her parents’ condition. They were yet another tragedy from which she’d distanced herself. The loss of them from her life was no less devastating than all the other deaths around her, and yet it was acceptable in that she’d brought it on herself; had even orchestrated it. 

The loss of the teacher she’d come to depend on for the past six years was far less cavalier to her.

She’d thought that. She’d thought he was nothing but the teacher she’d wanted to impress the most; the death that’d be the most senseless and tragic to her.

Slowly, subtly; so that she didn’t even know when her feelings had crossed over from that of respect and pity for an elder to the turbulent warmth of woman's adoration for a man.

  
  


**_Sunshine burns_ **

Something was different in the air when she walked into the sickroom a day later. She was purposefully glib and began talking as soon as she crossed the threshold. She’d decided even before walking in that she’d pretend he was still going to be at Hogwarts next month. A few in her year would be retaking some of the courses at school in preparation for making up their NEWTs. The battle had disrupted examination week, and all students were given another opportunity to take their NEWTs or OWLs. The thought of being able to finish her final year at school was a happy one, even if Ron and Harry were still deciding whether to do it.

She was laughing as she walked into his room.“Professor, I’ve decided that you need to recover much faster if you’re to be ready to teach again in a month,” she said without preamble. 

Only to stop short when she saw him wearing full wizarding robes. He was seated on the bed, spine straight as a wand, and scribbling quickly on parchment. 

The bed was made, the curtain was tied up, and the table and shelves were empty of any possessions or even potions and vials.

Hermione forced her lips to remain smiling. “Are you being discharged? That must mean you’re well enough to teach again!”

The quill hovered over the parchment and he looked up at her comment. Using his left hand, the wand pulsed. Greyish-blue words jerkily formed in the air. _“You shall have a new DADA professor this autumn.”_

His lips were twisted into a sneer at the shakey calligraphy of his left hand. Any other time, she might have gently teased him about it. The urgency of the issue, however, supplanted any jokes she might have made. “Are you really leaving Hogwarts—forever?"

His eyebrow was an arched black line on his impassive face. At an imperceptible motion from him, words spilled into the room: _"I would hope that at some point I'd be shot of the sickroom, yes. Furthermore, the last thing Hogwarts needs is a professor who’s a mute."_

She shook her head blindly. "You’re twice the professor anyone else in your place would be. Besides, that's not what I'm asking, and you know it. Are you leaving permanently when you recover?"

She waited a beat, then two, then three. 

Her heart sank lower and lower. How would she be able to come back here in the fall without seeing his swift stride through the halls? She gazed up at him, her heart in her eyes, urging him to deny it, knowing that he would never lie.

Which was a silly belief on her part, considering he had spent the majority of his life as a double agent. Lies were his coin in trade. It was nonsensical of her to think that he'd never lie to her. He could, and she'd never know.

And yet, he wasn’t someone who’d lie to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

He had the most unfathomable face that she'd ever seen, but his eyes were never quite so. He was sallow-faced from a permanent career in the dungeons, hook-nosed, and much too skinny from half-eaten meals because he'd been distracted by a book or a treatise. His eyes, though, could always give him away if one looked for it.

She saw the answer shining back at her, in that brief regretful pause, just before he spoke.

_"Yes."_

The word seemed to percolate in the air before sinking in. So that was that. He was leaving. 

"Please don't go, sir," she half-whispered. "Who will tell me my essays are awful?"

There was a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, as though he wanted to grimace or smile. _"They're not awful, Ms Granger, and you've always known it. I just wanted you to hone your passion in a more concise manner."_

A year ago, she’d never have believed that Professor Snape would ever say such words to her without brimming with sarcasm. He had changed, and that thought simultaneously thrilled and saddened her. 

_If he could change like this, then all things were possible—weren’t they?_

She’d finally have the chance to see his smiles, and he wouldn’t even be present to deliver them. 

Her cheeks felt flushed as her gaze fell away. She knew her thoughts were written all over her face, and she itched with the need to shield herself from him. "What would I do without you, sir?"

_"Enough with the ‘sir,’ Ms Granger.”_ He paused and touched the bandages at his throat. _“I won't be a professor for much longer."_

She shook her head. Every time this topic had come up, she’d tried her utmost to dissuade him. She didn’t sway from her usual course this time. "But I—I need you. We _all_ need you. _Hogwarts_ needs you! You can't leave us now."

_"I think Hogwarts has had quite enough of me."_ There was something almost resigned in his expression, despite his acerbic words. 

In the next moment, he cast a glance at the door and closed it. There was something so intimate about the way his lashes lifted and their gazes locked. She found that she was holding her breath. His irises were rich and luminescent with unspoken emotion that she couldn’t decipher, but it was something she’d never seen from him before. Sympathy, perhaps; something that she’d never received from him. She almost hated to look away to see the blue words drifting slowly in the air: _"This, too, shall pass, Hermione Granger.”_

And then, “ _Hero worship isn't the end of the world."_

Her mouth was dry as she read the words. _He knew._

Her heart gave one jolting lurch before it completely stopped. 

_He knew how she felt._

_How?_

“S-sir,” she said, her voice stuttering and as hushed as a breath lingering in the air. Her heart was pulsing double-time. “I’m—I’m sorry. But surely…” She swallowed hard. Surely legilimency couldn’t pull out thoughts that weren’t there. Surely he couldn’t _see_ what she had only barely admitted to herself.

And yet—perhaps she’d been the only one blind to her own inclinations.

Ginny’s voice, knowing and matter-of-fact: _You’re of age. Why not him?_

Luna’s voice, light and song-like: _Opposites attract, you know._

Angelina’s voice, arch and teasing: _You’re back again for your favourite professor, aren’t you?_

Ron’s voice, deep and annoyed: _You never want to go out anymore. All you do is spend time in that hospital ward._

Harry’s voice, concerned and curious: _Is there something I should know about you and Professor Snape? Hermione? You’re blushing._

Hermione took another breath and summoned all her courage. She lifted up her chin and met his inscrutable eyes, letting all her emotions shine through. “If—my feelings weren’t reciprocated, I’d-I’d be alright with it.”

She almost fainted after the words came out. _Had she really said that? Had she confessed her feelings to a professor?_

_Former_ professor, she corrected herself, trying to continue breathing evenly. Even to herself, her inhalation and exhalation sounded extraordinarily loud—grating on the ear, even.

He blinked. His gaze swept over her features as tangibly as an actual touch, testing her resolve, searching her thoughts. There was a tightness to the set of his brow. He didn’t say a word. 

For one brief moment in time, her heart lurched. There was _something_ in his face that made her think that he wasn’t completely immune to her. That perhaps he’d softened towards her as well.

She realised later just how well she’d come to know him. She saw the second his face shuttered, and his eyes blanked. He’d shut off his feelings and turned inward, to where demons surely dwelt and niggled at him. 

He aimed his wand at his throat and spoke for the first time since he'd been felled by Nagini. She saw the bandages at his throat move. His voice was barely above a whisper and Hermione almost cried at how dry and raspy it sounded, when it'd been rich and full of nuance once. “Thank you.” He tilted his head, and then there was a grimace, as though those two words had scraped his vocal cords raw.

Her mouth was completely dry with nerves, but concern for his welfare unlocked her tongue. “Oh, don’t talk!” she said, an imploring hand outstretched. She was emboldened enough to touch him again, for the first time since he’d regained mobility. The cloth of his robes felt both rough and soft, as though she’d never known what it was to feel through her fingertips before. “You’re not supposed to talk yet.” _Maybe you’ll never speak again_ hovered on her tongue but she bit it back with effort.

It wasn’t that far from what she’d almost spoken aloud—that she would sacrifice the sound of his voice if he’d keep his rejections to himself. 

She snatched her hand back, clenching it tight to bring warmth back to her cold fingers. When had she turned so selfish? When had she decided on behalf of someone else that she’d will a permanent handicap on him just so that her feelings could be returned?

She wasn’t this person. She didn’t understand _who_ this person she’d become was.

Perhaps it was something that had always been there. Ron would say she was taking being a teacher’s pet much too far. If only—oh, if only this had to do with grades and papers, and not anything to do with the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, as though the bottom of her world was dropping away.

Bravely, she looked up. Awaiting his answer.

He swished his wand in the air. _“Thank you, Ms Granger, for your unfailing kindness to a former professor. Ten points to Gryffindor.”_

She choked back a short, dismayed laugh. It was either that or cry. Even now, he was so niggardly with the points. She was reminded of the day she and Ron had brought the professor back from the Shrieking Shack, blood covering the two of them. His face had been so pale, his lips nearly white. But breathing. He'd still been breathing. Just before the Healers swarmed around him, he'd opened his eyes and waved his wand feebly. The words _ten points to Gryffindor_ had wavered in the air, staying solid long after he'd been whisked through to another part of the sickroom. 

Then, as now, he’d not rated the saving of his life very highly.

Something flashed deep in his eyes, and he leaned forward so slightly that anyone observing the scene would never have noticed. Through the blurring of her eyes, she saw that his hand was outstretched to her, and she gripped it blindly. All her senses seemed concentrated in that one point of contact, that dry, rough warmth of a calloused hand—a hand that had cleaned up potion spills and healed burns and waved over an infinite array of life and death. She wanted that hand on hers forever; within her grasp, on her shoulder, brushing her cheek. 

She wanted all the other intimacies that flashed through her mind, but they were gone just as quickly as a shrinking impossibility.

A voice rose high over the others outside of the room and broke the tension within. He disengaged his hand and turned away.

He was almost out of the room when she called after him. “Professor!” Then, hauling out all the courage shored up inside her, “ _Severus_. Won’t you—won’t you stay in contact?”

He paused briefly at the threshold of the door, one hand resting on the handle; the hand that had too briefly held hers. A final burst of smoke drifted from the tip of his wand. She hadn’t quite finished reading before he walked through and was gone.

_“Be well, Hermione Granger.”_

So many words were still locked up inside her chest. “It’s not—it’s not hero worship. I _do_ need you, sir. Who shall tell me if I'm being overly verbose or an insufferable know-it-all? Or who will tell me if I'm finally _—_ adequate?" she whispered to herself in an empty room. 

Nobody was there to hear those soft words spoken through lips pressed tightly against a torrent of emotion. There was only the ray of bright yellow sunshine, shining across a still room, lighting the silent dust motes that danced across the air in accompaniment to her suppressed sob.

  
  


**_Comes the dawn_ **

_A year later_

The owl came for her on the last day of school, almost as though it had been timed exactly so. 

It fluttered down to her towards the end of lunch, just as the raucous rise and fall of chatter and laughter was at its zenith. The sun was directly shining down and charmed to cast a bright glow over the Great Hall. Shafts of light widened in transparent triangles over the rows of tables and benches.

Smiling, she’d absently taken the letter Neville pushed insistently towards her. “No!” she yelled in half-hearted protest at the teasing farther down the table. “That was _Parvati_ who came up with that. Not every single hex comes from me, you know!”

The chatter continued as she pulled open the beige wrapping. Dimly, she registered that there was a thin white Muggle envelope inside of the usual vellum parchment that wizards used. Her breath stuttered as she stared down at handwriting she’d not seen in two years. She tore open the letter with shaky fingers.

_Darling Hermione,_

_One day out of the blue, we were visited by a British man going by the name of Severus Snape. He asked us a few questions about our daughter—which we said we didn’t have. He then hypnotised us...oh, I can’t describe it entirely. It must have been Magic. We felt like ropes had bound us in place, and then he waved his wand around and muttered under his breath the entire time._

_Suddenly it was as though a fog had lifted. Your father and I don’t know how to explain away the time that we’ve been here. We’d completely forgotten about you and our lives back in Britain and had_ _abandoned_ _you. My dearest daughter, our plans are to finalise our business here and return immediately. Mr. Snape has strongly urged us against such an action and commanded us to wait for your call first._

_Please hurry and call as soon as you can._

_We love you._

_Mum and Dad_

Ginny’s voice was the first sound to intrude upon her shocked silence. “Hey, what’s that?” she said over Hermione’s shoulder. “It’s—oh you’ve received a letter from your parents. Hermione! Why didn’t you say?” Her arms came around to loop about Hermione’s shoulders, and she squeezed hard.

“I didn’t—I just got it. My mind’s all in a whirl. My parents—he did it. He really did it.” Hermione moved by habit as she reread the letter and folded it back into the same neat lines that the paper was creased. She looked up, her eyes shining.

“How was he able to reverse the memory spell when the authorities couldn’t?” Ginny asked. “It’s _amazing_ news, but I’m still stuck on how he did it.”

“Of course he was able to,” Hermione said numbly. “He’s probably the highest acclaimed mind expert in the world now that Professor Dumbledore’s gone. He’s just never been certified as a Master in it.”

Ginny’s open mouth snapped shut. “Well, that makes sense.” She turned an inquiring look on Hermione. “What are you going to do then? Wait for your parents to come back?”

Hermione’s mind was rapidly cataloguing all the things she had to do. She’d intended on Portkeying out immediately after the NEWTs, of course, but now she had another task in addition to seeing her parents.

One that sent her heart pounding.

She thought of dark, intense eyes that could glow like ember coals. Of a deep, rasping laugh that thrilled her to the depths of her soul. Of that once-rich voice now marked by a hoarseness that never failed to send shivers up her spine. Of him using all of his strength to say “thank you” when he’d been ordered not to speak.

Of the fact he’d remembered her many worries about her parents in Australia, and the sacrifices she’d made. Of how she never thought she’d regret so much sending them away. Of how she sometimes felt defeating Voldemort wasn’t worth her sacrifice.

He’d remembered all of it, and he’d done the impossible.

Her resolve began to burn within her.

A year ago, he’d deemed her feelings for him nothing but hero worship, relegated her emotions to a silly, schoolgirl crush. She’d tried to believe it, too, in the coming weeks and months, and wondered if the fact that nobody could compare to her former professor _was_ a sign of how swotty she was.

It wasn’t. She hadn’t been wrong. She’d always known what she wanted and set out to get it.

A slow smile crept onto Hermione’s face. “No,” she said. “I’m still going out there. I’ll just have to alter my itinerary a bit.”

She had an errant professor to track down.

**Author's Note:**

> This was influenced by the poem Comes the Dawn, which was first discovered in an Ann Landers column and anonymous. It was later accredited to two people, and it's so lovely that I think the full thing needs to be reprinted. I thought it was perfect for their relationship and especially in the aftermath of the war.


End file.
